Horsham Coffee Roaster: Costa Rica, La Karola, Natural

We are super excited to be sourcing our Costa Rican coffees directly. We source our Costa Rican coffees directly through Selva Coffee, a small exporter representing a select group of coffee producers some of which we have personally visited.

This stunning natural comes from a small 1 hectare plot of land planted with red and yellow Catuai trees.

The farm is currently owned and managed by Steve Mora but has been a family business since 1960. Over the last 10 years the family have focused on producing high scoring, hand harvested speciality coffee. We've selected a small microlot harvest from a 1 hectare section of the farm know as 'La Karola'. They believe that this section of the farm produces the best quality cherry with high sugar content due to the unique microclimate on this particular side of the La Cruz mountains. Although they are not organic certified no chemicals or pesticides are used on the farm.

This is the first time they have produced their own microlot on their farm. Previously they would delivery their cherry for processing at a local mill but the family would like to produce their own microlots and decided to start with naturals dried on new raised beds. The coffee was harvested by hand and floated in large water containers to remove and defects. Cherry was the laid out to dry on raised beds under a solar dryer, a type of open sided greenhouse. This protects the coffee from harsh direct sunlight and keeps it dry just in case of rain. The drying process took 25 days and during daytime hours the coffee was turned every 45 minutes and any noticeable defects were removed by hand. Once dried the coffee was packed into large platics bags and stored for 1 month before the fruit was removed.